This is the 2024 by degrees Climate Summit.

We are already experiencing climate change.

Just in the past year in New England, experienced many storms and flood damage from the coast of Maine to the river valleys of Vermont in July, December, January and in April.

These events can, of course, be very painful.

But in our response, we can catch glimpses of the future, Writer and climate activist Rebecca Solnit writes, disaster offers a view into another world for ourselves.

And I really believe that, for example, after Katrina, residents of the ninth Ward in New Orleans created a structure of mutual aid with their neighbors, sharing food, first aid, and meeting people's needs.

And this is the kind of thing we see all the time.

We've seen it here in New England.

Some of the people on this panel can speak directly to that.

And so even though climate change is a catastrophe, it is an opportunity to build systems that work better for all of us.

But how how do we do that?

And how do we do it in a sustained and long term way around climate solutions that could take years.

And how do we do that with our neighbors and local governments?

So let's ask our panelists about this.

We are so excited.

I'm so excited to introduce this group.

Brianna O'Brien is the conservation coordinator for the Town of Hampton, where she focuses on improving the local ecological health and resilience of Hampton, especially its wetlands.

Claudia Diezmartinez is a policy fellow at the City of Boston's.

Environment Department, where, among other things, she's focused on helping, city staff and its community become carbon neutral by 2050.

Or the city of Boston become carbon neutral by 2050 and helping leaders prioritize justice and equity.

She's also a PhD candidate at Boston University, and Kari White is based in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, where she's the director of community health equity at Northern Counties Health Care.

After the damage of last July's floods, she also helped co-found and now chairs the Northeast Kingdom long term recovery group, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort.

So welcome.

Let's give them a round of applause, please.

So let's start with the topic of this panel.

Why are we talking about the local today?

A lot of people experience limitations and hurdles that come from getting government assistance.

In the wake of disasters, hurricane Sandy is just one example.

Meaning that community generated solutions are essential.

But why is that?

I'd like to hear from each of you.

What is something that's happened in your region that couldn't have been done, or would have been so much harder without community involvement?

Maybe something that even could only have been done coming from the local.

Brianna, can we start with you?

Sure.

Yeah.

I think that, when we're thinking about the action that we're taking at a local level, we want to be, prepared and, mitigating disasters.

And in the preparedness, we want to have that ahead of the disasters happening.

And in Hampton, we have a lot of really amazingly involved residents who have advocated for years, for the health of their, of their community, specifically the folks along the coast and who border the marsh.

A lot of the the priorities that Hampton has really focused on over the past few years wouldn't have happened without their advocacy.

In in 2014, because of their, their work and their consistency and showing up to town meetings, and their questioning and their and their concerns being brought to light repeatedly.

The town did some, studies, and that led to further studies and eventually became a pretty, at this point, robust, priority for the for the town of Hampton to focus on climate resilience and coastal resilience.

Across most of our departments.

Kari, what about you?

People are feeling, desperate.

And when a disaster strikes, it's it just shines a light on the existing, disparities and, issues that people are dealing with in their day to day life.

So when there are governmental agencies that come in in the wake of a disaster, rightfully so, many of our disenfranchized neighbors, are very wary of going into a space sitting across a table with a person representing the government in a uniform, who knows nothing about, their situation, their family.

So regardless of how beneficial those resources might be, the messenger matters.

That's a really good point.

Claudia, what about you?

Sure.

Hey, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

Back in Boston, I've been very honored and privileged to be part of what I see as one of the most significant, programs that we have in the city to achieve carbon neutrality.

And the name of that program is Virgo, which stands for the Building Emissions.

Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance.

And I won't go into much detail right now.

But one of the reasons I feel so much pride to be part of the team that is implementing this program now is that it is one of the few, building decarbonization programs of its kind in the United States that has such intentional components for environmental justice and, that not only has explicit goals for justice, but also has very intentional, intentional measures to make sure that the implementation of the program is equitable and that our our most vulnerable communities in Boston can ultimately benefit from better buildings.

And I can say that this program would not exist, or it would not exist in this way if it wasn't for the commitment of a lot of community based organizations in Boston that put a lot of work throughout the years to have this program in place, to have better buildings in the city.

We heard from a listener named Nate who wrote us, when an applicant for a building permit develops engineering plans to account for flooding, they often only need to account for 25 year storm events.

We know that thousand year storm events now happen every few years.

Almost all buildings in development in New Hampshire have been poorly designed to manage stormwater for flooding that occurs increasingly frequently.

Yeah.

It's it's a really challenging system to navigate, knowing, kind of the shortcomings of FEMA's mapping systems and what they, what they account for.

And often times when they're released, they're already antiquated because of how, dynamic floodplains are.

And with the changing climate.

There's a lot of nuance to that that isn't often captured in those maps and therefore is not required by by building code and by FEMA's standards.

In in Hampton, we have adopted higher standards for our building requirements.

And, they allow for, more freeboard depending on the type of structure.

So freeboard being how much higher above the base flood elevation a building has to be built to.

Certain stormwater management requirements.

So, they are it was actually a really great, kind of dynamic community.

There was community involvement.

There was a lot of stakeholders involved in these conversations as we discussed what that, ordinance update would look like.

And we were able to evaluate different options.

And what made the most sense for what, you know, kind of where we were at as a community.

And so that was, adopted, I think it was this, this spring.

And, and so we're looking at much more resilient structures moving forward if new structures or substantially improved structures.

I'd like to turn now to a, a super sexy subject that I think that we'll all know what I'm about to say, which is municipal budgets.

And their role in setting climate priorities in our backyards.

It actually is fascinating.

Claudia, you wrote a paper about this published in the journal nature, and you argue that municipal finance should be thought of as a, quote, set of ethical and political choices that can be used to move forward on climate action and justice.

What do you mean by that?

I like when you think about municipal finances in the end, reflection of what we value as a society.

So we are saying this is what it's worth, investing our money and this is what we value.

This is what we think is the best for us in the future.

And cities towns can have a lot of climate goals and all of these targets and beautiful commitments.

But in the end, if the money is not put into climate action, it is likely that nothing would happen or not that much will happen.

So that paper I really want people to, you know, become more curious about, things that sounds so boring, like municipal budgets or, you know, revolving funds and where their city is putting money.

And we'd found that actually, in terms of climate change, the decisions that municipalities make, for their budgets or financial decisions can really impact one city officials are ultimately able to do.

We found that first aid can impact the types of climate programs that can get implemented in cities.

So cities, for example, would be more likely to prefer to implement programs that are profitable and that have some savings involved.

And a lot of the times things like resilience, reputation are seen, like where there's no money in that, maybe there's savings in the future, maybe we'll have a little less damage if there's another storm, but that's less exciting for the financial people than, oh, where are you going to replace these heat, these heat air with, new electric heat?

And we'll have these savings in two years.

So that's one.

And then, also how you get money can impact when and for how long you're actually able to implement a program, from budgeting cycles to grants that say you have to spend all your money by X day, or you can only spend it on this geography, and you cannot spend money that could possibly be in another community, that it's your neighbor.

And then it shifts power to decide what is worth investing in our community.

So, instead of municipal budgets, instead of looking at their community and seeing, what are you prioritizing?

What do you need?

They also need to be thinking about, well, what do credit agencies prefer?

What will investors want to see in our municipal bonds.

So in that way it's chips a bit of power to to decide well what are what is worth investing in when, how and for whom.

Thinking about multiple budget cycles and how you know, climate action has to be sustained over many, many years and often many budget cycles.

I'm curious of either of you, Brianna Currie, have, experience with managing, you know, when we need to continue this beyond this budget cycle or when it was a struggle or when it was a success.

There's no money in this for us as a long term recovery group.

Right?

We're basically a vehicle that is trying to disperse funding.

On behalf of individual survivors in our communities that have been impacted.

And, the real money in disaster recovery goes to these huge national organizations like the Red cross or the Methodist Church, etc., etc., who have years of coming in to disaster impacted communities.

And getting these hundreds, millions of dollars grants to like staff up capacity wise, right.

And do these rebuilding projects as part of their ministry work and, and whatnot.

And that's a wonderful resource to have.

But it's not embedded in our community.

It's this external resource that comes in, saves the day and then leaves.

So sustainability of these efforts is called long term recovery for a reason.

Right.

This is like a five year process.

And the chance at that I mean that's actually it's probably going to be more than that for our communities.

And that's a bitter pill to swallow because people are suffering right now and they've been suffering since July.

So you never feel like you're moving fast enough.

But where do we go for the next event that is sure to happen between now and when our survivors from the July flooding recover, right?

So it's constantly being on the lookout for grant opportunities and partnerships who might have some resources to bring to the table to help our capacity.

But it's a never ending process.

I wish there was a different way.

I don't know what it is, actually.

I want to turn to equity here.

Climate change, of course, affects people in the same community quite differently, and members of a community may disagree on which issues to prioritize.

Claudia, can you give us a clear example of what climate inequity might look like?

And an example of a justice minded solution?

Sure.

I think we don't have to go very far to notice climate injustice or climate inequity within our towns and cities.

So thinking specifically about climate change, for example, heat event or when we have just a very, very hot day, we all experience it very differently depending on our circumstance.

So it's not going to be the same to experience a heatwave.

If you were working off his job and you are on the AC all day versus you, perhaps, have, work outdoors or if you're even on a house.

So just that single day in one single event or experiences are going to be tremendously differently or even where our houses are located, do we have access to green space?

Do we have access to air conditioning?

And all of these issues of access, come from, you know, structural injustices in our communities, from environmental racism, colonialism and so on.

So where we are not all starting from the same place.

So climate change is not an equalizer where, oh, well, we all suffer from climate change.

We will all experienced rising temperatures or storms or disasters, but we're not all in the same place to recover at the same rate or to, yeah, be protected from those things.

So thinking about a solution that would have justice in mind, what would be an example?

I think for a very simple example, I think the most environmental thing that people have always seen my name, mean people make fun of me is like, oh, you're just planting trees.

But even something as simple as that, it's like it's not just about planting trees, but where where is there no access to green space right now?

Thinking about, who would benefit from these?

And they're not just going and planting trees and be like, yeah, now you have trees in a park, but, like, what would you like in the in that park?

What are the services that, your community is lacking?

So even just switching the mindset from, just like we're coming here and we know we need more trees and we're just planting them.

Well, where, how, why and what other services do you need going to the community first?

When it comes to the coast, of course, erosion and sea level rise are a huge issue.

I myself, grew up on Nantucket Island off of Cape Cod, which, obviously has a lot of vacation homes, a lot of wealth.

But also sea level rise is a risk to critical infrastructure and to the working class community as well.

It's always a stance where there are tensions around which areas that we as a community are going to prioritize, to try to protect, and the dynamics of wealth and power and inequity are at play.

Brianna, in Hampton, also on the coast, how do you, as a community decide which projects to prioritize?

Where does that conversation happen?

It's a really, really challenging question that we deal with all of the time.

And I was thinking as, Corey and Claudio were talking that, when we do prioritize solutions, we do try to to solicit input from community members from from partner partnering organizations.

And we want to make sure that the solutions we're pursuing are, mindful of of all those that are affected.

But sometimes the people that can make it to the table are the people that are retired, that aren't at work that day.

That don't have to, you know, bring their children, you know, to a doctor's appointment.

So being mindful of who is at the table and trying to find alternative ways to bring them into the conversation to consider what solutions might be more effective for them then, than we might realize.

And, you know, unintentionally cause harm through the solutions that we do prioritize.

I don't know that we have, I can't tell you a system that we use to to make sure that that's happening all of the time and that we're, we're, you know, making the best choices with our prioritization.

But it's an ongoing practice.

And we're, you know, constantly working to invite more people to the table and open that conversation up and find new avenues to solicit, feedback and questions and concerns.

It really is an ever evolving practice for For Our Town.

That reminds me of something in your research, Claudia, about you found that more public engagement in climate planning is associated with greater attention to justice.

So I love that synchronicity.

There.

Table in Boston asks, what do you think of New York and New Jersey's plan to relocate homeowners and renters along coasts?

I know that, buyouts is a question that we'll, we'll touch on in each region here.

But again, in Hampton, Brianna, you your town has been exploring at least the possibility or starting the conversation of a buyout program.

Right?

Yes.

Yeah.

We have, we have exploring FEMA procedures and FEMA funding is is a challenge in and of itself.

And we've spent a lot of time doing that to make sure that when we roll out this program, it's as effective as it can be.

And we are not, again, inadvertently causing harm.

Relocating people is really, really nuanced.

Challenge.

And there's a lot of, there's a there's a huge toll that it can play on somebody, mentally, the sense of place is so important, a sense of belonging, like Corey was talking about, sense of community.

So, so there's a lot that goes into that.

And we've we've really been exploring that very thoroughly before we begin to, to roll that out.

But, as part of that same program, FEMA funds, home elevations and they provide financial assistance for home elevations.

And so that that's going to be kind of our first step in that, in that program to help us, no pun intended, get our feet wet.

But, it will help us get familiar with the program and the needs that people have as they apply for this kind of financial assistance.

And, you know, hopefully we'll we're we're planning on rolling that out this this year and, piloting a one, home elevation application.

And we'll see where that program takes us into the future.

But there's been a lot of interest among our residents.

We put out a, a survey and, 13 people were were interested, which doesn't sound like a lot, but if you really think about a coastal community and 13 people being ready and willing to to relocate to have their their property acquired as soon as the funding is available, that seems pretty significant to me.

And there was, I think 60, 60 something, people that were interested in in that possibility, if they learned more information, you know, down the line, but out of around 200.

Right?

Yes.

Yeah.

So there's definitely interest and it's certainly something that we're, we're actively working to roll out, but it'll be interesting to see kind of where it lands culturally in the community.

Corey, what about buyouts in the Northeast Kingdom?

Yeah.

So, Brianna, you were saying that it's, a difficult process can be a difficult process, right?

I mean, I think it's traumatic.

I would say traumatic, even if it all goes well.

Right?

This dislocation.

So, it's confusing.

There's a lot of apprehension, even if it's really in some circumstances that I can think of.

The only real option, it's still incredibly scary.

And there's not a lot of choice in terms of where you're going to be relocated.

We don't have just vacant empty properties.

We have a housing crisis.

So the chances of you ending up in a home in your community are zip.

What are the ways to make it less scary?

Are there are there ways to make it less scary?

Well, I think having, the opportunity to just let people assess that sort of fear and their particular circumstance and situation, instead of trying to talk them out of how they're feeling.

Right.

Just letting people have time and space and, being alongside them and letting them, just talk about it, I think has been the only thing that we have found to be useful, because it's confusing to us, too, even if we're able to sort of pour through, the literature and the process and maybe make that a little bit easier to understand, that doesn't take away the trauma and the fear that's happening in the community.

Yeah, that's what you're saying?

Yes.

Were you trying to say something, Claudia?

Think so?

You're moving about?

Well, I and related to this conversation, I think it made me think of these contradictions that exist, again, related to climate finance and resilience.

Because in a lot of, municipalities, for example, in Massachusetts, a lot of our municipalities rely on property taxes to be able to fund city services, including the way that we do climate resilience programs.

And so we need that money to protect ourselves from the coast or from storms or from heat.

But at the same time, towns and cities are incentivized to allow development to continue in areas that we know are liable to climate change.

And there's been a lot of research, not by me, by, for example, Professor Linda G. From Cornell, of how coastal towns in Massachusetts feel continue to have development in areas that we know.

Are you going to flood very soon?

But we need those property taxes to be able to fund climate resilience in the first place.

And we have been, there has been research of that happening also in Miami, for example, where they're allowing a lot of development of high luxury buildings in areas that we know are going to flood.

But again, we need that for money to be able to then respond to that.

And so who gets to stay in the coast and how?

It's a question.

Let's talk about how to get people involved and how to how to rally people to stay involved.

Beyond voting, an important topic, but beyond voting, as we mentioned earlier, Claudia, in your research, this idea of public engagement and climate planning is associated with a greater attention to justice.

So if you're a citizen and you're starting, from outside of politics, you want to see more climate action in your city.

How do you start?

What are specific offices or committees or people that you can look for?

I would encourage people to actually look at their budgets and figure out who makes those decisions, and how can you influence those decisions in the future?

There's no standards for municipal budgets.

So almost every town, it's different and it's the documents will look differently and decisions are made differently.

So I would encourage you to figure out how that works, where you live, get into those budgets.

Yeah.

Brianna, as a conservation coordinator, how do residents help you do your job?

Well, when you when people approach you, what do you like to see and what do you wish you saw more of?

My work is is so driven by by resident input.

I love when people come and ask questions about what they can or should or should not do on their property.

Because I think stewarding your own property responsibly is such an important first step.

And in breaking down the barrier between you and the world around you, the natural world around you, and finding ways to to do that.

Well, even just not mowing grass aggressive short is like just making those simple decisions to really connect with your natural world through your own backyard, or through the park in your neighborhood or, you know, through whatever green space you have access to is really, a super important first step.

And, and then I think residents who are monitoring their communities and their natural spaces and reporting back to me on what they're seeing is.

I can't, I can't put a weight on how important that is.

There are residents who lifelong residents who have been monitoring the size of the dunes by their homes for 30 years and have photo evidence of of of how these dunes have changed and evolved.

And, you know, it's not official data collection, but ultimately becomes that and how we're using it.

And so the residents who are really paying attention and trying to learn how to better pay attention to their natural world and, and again, break down that barrier between them as a human and in the outside world, and coming to me or many of the different offices in our town office with those questions and concerns and any public town meeting, you know, those are great avenues for for that kind of work.

And, and that kind of dialog.

Susan from in Durham says, have we abandoned efforts to reverse climate change?

Is adaptation our only focus now?

Claudia, what do you think?

Well, all of my life is about mitigation, these days.

So, we're still working on climate mitigation, and that's still critical.

I think they are both one of, like, sides of the same coin.

One cannot exist without the other.

And in many ways, they can both support each other and we need to see them.

Well, resilience mitigation and justice all as one and not as we separate things with separate people and separate departments, is there?

I'm thinking about low hanging fruit or something that could be done on a local level, that if your city or town has not done it, they should do it.

They should think and see, see if it's been done in their town.

I'm thinking about something in a building code, maybe something on a town energy council.

What would be something that, they should check to see if their town has taken care of this aspect of climate action, I think one would be, is there any person in the city whose job description include climate change?

And maybe if your town is not small or, it doesn't have the resources to have its own sustainability or environment or climate department?

Has climate been integrated into the departments that exist?

So you probably have a parks department or public works and all of those departments that do classic city services have so much influence on climate action at the city level.

So I would encourage people is like, is anyone thinking about these in my town on their daily responsibilities?

And then the other thing I would think about is, is there any way that community engagement or oversight, over climate programs has been integrated or formalized in any way?

So in in that way, we guarantee that there is some sort of community oversight every year, no matter what happens with city staff, no matter the turnover within the department, there's going to be a community voice there.

So thinking about, is there any way that community engagement or oversight has been formalized in the way that climate work is done in your community?

Sustaining this work, do you have any examples of things that people have done that have made a big difference in morale, in terms of climate action?

And I just I can't help but underscore this is relational work.

We're humans that are meant to live in relationship with one another and our environment.

And when that is out of balance, or if that's that's not a reciprocal relationship or a relationship, quite frankly, built on love, then you're going to feel it.

And those crises are going to be the actual crisis rather than a road bump.

Thank you so much.

This is a great place, I think, to wrap up, thank you to Brianna, Claudia and Carrie for joining me today.

And thank you so much to our beautiful audience.

Joining us in the room.

Well, welcome.

Today's second panel.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And thank you for coming back.

I'm Rick Ganley, the host of NHPR's Morning Edition.

Earlier, we heard from experts who are working to make their communities more resilient to the effects of climate change.

And and now we'll go to you spending some time with the people who cover our communities, our towns, and our cities, working to bring important information about the environment and the changing climate to the broader public.

So joining us are four journalists who bring a really broad, amount of coverage to solutions based journalism climate coverage to help our communities through this.

Thank you all for joining us, Maura.

Hope the magazine covers climate change, energy and the environment for Knpr.

My colleague in the newsroom sits just ten feet away from me.

A pleasure.

Maura also helps lead our bi degrees climate reporting project that tells stories of the people grappling with the challenges of our changing world and exploring possible solutions.

Nila Banerjee is the chief climate desk editor for NPR.

The climate Desk at Knpr focuses on making complex science accessible to audiences, spotlighting barriers to addressing climate change and explaining solutions, and revealing how climate change has disproportionately affected marginalized people.

And we are really happy to have you here, Neal.

Thank you.

Paula.

Maura is an independent audio reporter in New England.

She was formerly a reporter on WBur Climate and environment team, where she covered local communities, resilience to climate change.

Welcome.

And Abigail Giles covers climate and the environment for Vermont public.

She focuses on the energy transition and how the climate crisis is affecting.

Vermonters and Vermont's landsca.

So great to have all of you on stage here.

I've enjoyed all of your reporting over the years, and I actually want to start with a question that we did get from the audience.

That came up in our last panel.

And I think this is a great kind of a bridge question to this panel.

So let's put this to you.

Susan from Durham asks again, have we abandoned discussions of ways to reverse climate change?

Can journalism reignite that?

You know, Maura, let's start with you.

Yeah.

So I think that this a lot, I think in my work as a local reporter, often what I'm covering a lot of the time is climate change impacts.

You know, if there's, a weather event, if there's a study comes out, you know, when we see sea level rises getting worse, farmers are losing crops in a rainy summer.

And so I hear that, you know, like the, the idea that we're focusing a lot on impact and not too much on solutions.

I tried really hard to cover solutions.

I don't think we're ignoring it.

And and, you know, the journalists I know, but I do think the idea of like, framing is, is really important.

So, in all of my stories about climate change impacts, I try to, you know, add the context that humans cause climate change and our are causing climate change.

You know, the IPCC says every tonne of carbon we emit matters makes the world warmer.

This is a choice.

You know, we we've made in our making.

And I think that context is really important from a solutions lens.

And then of course, covering climate solutions, you know, not just covering them, but bringing the journalistic rigor we bring to everything else, to the solution, the stories, you know, who's funding these, who's benefiting from them, who's losing out?

Is there greenwashing happening?

So, yeah, I guess that's sort of how I think about solutions, but I'm sure these other journalists have.

Well, that that speaks to you don't want to know.

You don't want to turn people off.

You want to give them something, some kind of hopeful reporting as well as the facts.

And the facts can be very dark.

You know, Abigail, from your standpoint of Vermont, I know, you know, your reporting in the last year with with incredible flooding that happened over there, do you see that?

Do you feel that journalism can offer climate solutions that people are paying attention to?

Yeah, I think so.

And I think on the topic of, kind of like fatigue and, and the sort of desire to, to tune out, something that I find like very reassuring is that whenever we do polling of our audiences, our audience, I should say, time and again we hear that climate, environment are some of the issues that matter most to them, and in particular around solutions and accountability reporting that happens at the very local level.

So I think that there's a really a critical and important role for local reporters to play, in particular in this space.

You know, not every newsroom can staff a full time climate reporter in the local news world.

I'm one of two climate reporters in our state.

And, you know, I think that there's a real service that we can provide by, like, Maura spoke to doing really diligent reporting, fact checking, looking for greenwashing, and kind of, I like to think of it as providing the tools for construct debate so that, communities and people and communities have good information about how to engage on this issue, which really does affect all of us and some of us disproportionately.

Yeah.

Neil, a win win.

Setting the editorial strategy for NPR's climate board, climate Desk, how much weight do you give stories that that are focused on solutions?

I know your team hired a Climate Solutions reporter.

When?

So NPR is quite new to having a climate desk.

Climate change was was covered as a science story for a long time.

And so when we got the opportunity to create a climate desk, one of our first priorities was to, have a position that would look at solutions.

And I think the reason is that, solutions.

I mean, a lot of people like to talk about hope and, and, but I also feel like when you talk about hope, others can be dismissive of that notion.

And say that you're being Pollyanna.

And we like to think about is agency, right, that we have agency over what is happening in the world?

And I just want to go back to that question that Susan asked.

And the previous thing about, like, if you're talking about solutions, if you're talking about adopting, does that mean that you're giving up on reducing the pollution that's driving climate change?

When we work on solutions, you know, both at the network and then with our partners at member stations like, you know, and we work with all three of these reporters, right?

We're looking at solutions that reduce the pollution that's making the planet hotter, and also that help us adopt because as a lot of you know, if we turned off all greenhouse gas emissions now that carbon dioxide is still baked into our atmosphere and the planet would continue to heat.

So what we're fighting for is for every 10th of a degree, not to make it worse, because if this is what it looks like right now, 1.1, it beggars the imagination what it's going to look like at 1.5 or 2.

Right.

So that is what what the battle is about.

It's about about adapting to what's happening now and preventing it from getting worse.

We do that through, a solutions reporter who is wonderful.

Well, unfortunately, she's like one person doing the job of, like, four people at the Washington Post.

Right?

And she does everything from looking at, I mean, she's done stories that were really popular that really break it down for our audience.

Like, what is a climate solution, you know, and how do you, as regular people figure out, like what's real and what's not?

So so that was one of our most popular stories last year.

But also when reporters are writing about things that aren't firmly in the solution space, right?

They, they they don't just write about the problems, but they write about how we can address them.

So, for example, our climate and corporations reporter Michael Copley, he, he's been writing a lot about plastics recently because, the petrochemical, the fossil fuel industry sees petrochemicals as a way to keep producing and keep adding to their bottom line, even as EVs and, and renewable energy and all of that drive down use of it as fuel.

So, plastics are everywhere.

It's an issue.

How do we deal with it?

And so one of the things he's looking at is this treaty about, you know, this global treaty that's being negotiated to reduce plastics.

Right?

And the discussions around that and who's in the way of that?

So we find through our audiences that they really like solution stories, but they also like, you know, a fact check, like a gut check through accountability.

And they really like science that pertains to their lives.

And all of these things I think are woven together.

So that's that's how we do it.

It's not just Julia, our solutions reporter, but every reporter, when they're doing stories, they're not just like laying out a problem for you and then you're miserable.

They're also like, you know, telling you like what?

Like what is the solution here?

And what's the barrier?

Is it political will?

Is it lobbying?

Is it science?

You know, what is the barrier here or some combination.

Pollock.

Could solutions based stories particularly help with audience fatigue?

You saying, I think so.

What I see, also echoing what nella was saying, like it gives to the communities and to the readers and, listeners, the sense of agency, especially, when you go to a community and you are covering a climate solution that was thought for many, many months, all everyone together, like, people, some NGO, some, the municipality and other groups all try to bring everyone to the table, like I've covered some, solutions that were like this in Massachusetts, for example, the doing research, of what people really need, what they are concerned about.

So this really, makes people make people feel they, they can their say will turn into something that will help their lives.

And I was also looking at, the Reuters Institute report, on digital news and they, they found that, even people who say they don't, they avoid the news because they are fatigued or because they, they can't see more tragedy or anything like that.

They are interested in solutions, stories.

So both people who read the news and are tired and people who totally like say they avoid the news, they are interested in solutions, stories.

I think that brings up a question about climate journalism being perceived as being an ideological, need from Nottingham as just a question about that.

It's clear that climate journalism is often perceived as ideological, which means that many people just frankly tune out.

Everybody's in their own, echo chamber.

So how do we, as journalists think about that challenge?

Does reaching those who are alienated by much of climate reporting factor into your work?

How about you, Mara?

Yeah, I'm I'm for sure familiar with that perception.

Something that I think guides me and grounds me in that is that I feel like climate change is maybe something, maybe one of the few things that we all experience, like we we truly have a shared experience of, and whether people are having that experience with shorter ice fishing seasons or experiencing more heat in their workplace, you know, there's their dog has like a ton of ticks on it in the, in the summertime, you know, like we all have some sort of personal connection.

It's affecting our lives in some way.

And I think connecting with that, helps, helps me think about how to connect with people who, see it as an ideological issue, because it's sort of like allows that personal connec you know, allows us to think about why we care about living on earth and, and why we might care about climate change.

I also think understanding why people who see it as an ideological issue do see it as an ideological issue is really important.

And, and sort of getting a sense for why, you know, people believe what they believe, why they may not believe in the reality of climate change.

What's stopping them from from incorporating that understanding into their work in their life?

That's a journalistic question I'm really interested in.

And I think just sort of like, you know, I don't I don't necessarily see my job as to, to change people's minds, but to connect with what reality they're experiencing.

Yeah.

And we talk about this all the time.

And tomorrow night we've talked about this all the time.

The ski season shrinking in New Hampshire.

It's obviously a big tourism state recreation big business.

So there are places there ways to talk to people in the business community that might be at a more conservative end of the spectrum.

When you're talking about climate change, Abigail, do you see that in Vermont as well?

Yeah.

Something that I heard, I think, from a former editor was, you know, people might not use the language of climate change, but everybody in Vermont likes to talk about the weather.

And that's something I found as a reporter.

I was an agriculture reporter before I was a climate reporter.

And I met plenty of people who are farmers who would tell me, you know, I have seen change in the way that my family farm and the resources that I kind of tend to, the way that they sort of manifest, the way that my business runs in recent decades.

And they might not be using the language of climate change in some cases.

Although we have many farmers in our state who are huge proponents of climate action and do a lot of advocacy.

But I think that there's a lot of power in climate stories, whether it's after an actual disaster or just about trying to sort of understand what it means to find resilience and to adapt to this, this future that we this really it's our it's our present reality, especially in small communities.

There's so much you said, I think, for hearing your neighbors voice on the radio and just feeling seen and kind of remembering that, like, these changes are things that all of us are experiencing.

I think, you know, in northern New England, people are so connected to the landscape.

We love where we live.

You know, I talked to a youth advocate actually this morning who told me when he feels tired, he goes and sits by the river behind his house.

And I love that.

I think that that's something that we can all identify with.

So, I think there's a lot of opportunity to sort of start with the place of like, what is our shared reality and our shared experience of this place that we are invested in together because it's where we live.

And I also think too, there's, you know, as was spoken to by everybody earlier, I find that letting the science drive, the, the stories we tell is, is hugely important as well.

You know, there's a lot to be concerned about, but I think that the science also tells us very clearly that there's still time to make different choices, that there is a window through which we can we can take action to make the future that we inherit better.

And so, I think that, you know, ideal ideology is one thing.

But as reporters, I do think it's important for us to, yeah, help people to better understand the science and make sure our reporting is grounded very carefully in what we know and what we don't know.

Now, I know a number of stations around the region, and they are included, or together through the New England news, collaborative.

More.

How's that been working out for us?

Well, I, I love collaborating.

I mean, I know all of these people through collaborations.

And we love having.

I mean, it really, it's great.

Like, I'm so glad to be here because of the people who are on the stage.

They're great.

Yeah, I, I've had just like, I think it's really transformed how I think about my job as a reporter, because I get to see really amazing reporters do stories and then feel ambitious myself about the kind of reporting I want to do.

Particularly in New England.

I mean, we experience really similar climate impacts across the region, but our states handle it in really different ways, policy wise.

And in New Hampshire in particular, it's really helpful for me to have points of comparison.

You know, how our other state legislatures, handling these problems and, you know, how is New Hampshire's approach different?

And then, you know, that allows us sort of the long view as we look into the future, how are those policies working out?

You know, like how how are people in these states that are handling climate change really differently, experiencing those policy differences?

Let's turn now to some examples of the kinds of solutions based stories that we've been talking about today.

Abigail, let me start with you, because this is kind of breaking news.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott has just vetoed a bill that would require the state to source all of its energy from renewable sources by 2035.

This was passed by Vermont lawmakers.

What has been the arguments for it?

I think interestingly, the the sort of controversy around this policy is not about whether or not Vermont should go to 100% renewable power.

Actually, every utility in the state, supports this this bill.

And along with, you know, renewable developers, I think, as you would expect and, environment most environmental groups in the state, but where this sort of, kind of sticking point, I think, between the governor and lawmakers has, has been is over how to get there.

So essentially, this policy would quadruple the amount of new renewable power that Vermont utilities purchased from the New England region.

And, you know, essentially why that sort of matters from an emissions perspective is that we have an interconnected grid.

So Vermont is absolutely dependent on natural gas burned elsewhere in the region.

We are heavily dependent on nuclear power, and by and large, that isn't generated within our borders.

We of course, draw a lot of power from Hydro-Quebec as well.

So essentially, in order to sort of offset the fossil fuel dependance in our electric sector as a region, investing in new renewables is really the sort of way to do that.

You know, lots of also important factors there around where they're sited, where, you know, whether it's where there's demand and storage.

The long and short of it is, I think there's agreement interestingly, in Vermont, that we need to get to this goal.

There's just disagreement about how to do it in the most cost effective way.

Mara, you've done a lot of reporting on the more on the move towards community power here in New Hampshire in particular, how is how is it changing the state's energy landscape?

So, you know, I think, with community power, New Hampshire, it's pretty new.

I don't know, for me, it seems sort of too early to say how exactly it's changing our elected or electric or energy system, but something that I've experienced talking to to folks in towns I think more than now, 60 towns who either have adopted community power programs are in the process of adopting them.

It's just that so many more people are interested in how we get our energy and how their homes are powered, and are taking the steps to go to town meeting to learn about it, to, look at their electric bill, and to, to sort of care about, like how we get our power, which I think especially with energy.

You know, I started as a climate reporter with no energy background.

I like took Dartmouth Energy 101 YouTube class to like, understand how to report on it.

And, it can be really scary, like can be really opaque.

And I think the fact that community power has gotten so many people involved in understanding how the electric system works is really, interesting and something that is transformational.

Community power providers also say, you know, this system can can help us adopt more renewables in the state.

I think that's something I'm really interested in learning more about, watching it sort of play out as, as it goes along.

So yeah, I do want to talk a little bit more about our region here.

You know, New England particularly affected by flooding, as we've seen in the past year and a half, we're seeing the heaviest increase in flood events than anywhere else in the country.

Many communities hit hard last summer, especially in Vermont.

Abigail, you reported extensively on those floods.

How did you see communities come together in the aftermath of of that?

We saw these sort of small pockets of, like, very real time solutions work happening with minimal resources.

Just because people saw some an opportunity to do something for somebody else and they did it.

Those are stories that to me as a reporter, need to be told, like we need to hear each other and we need to we need to hear that even in these moments of terrible despair, I think there's great opportunity for hope.

Well, Maura, you've done an awful lot of reporting on flooding here in New Hampshire as well.

You have a piece up this week, a fantastic piece about flooding that happened, about six months ago on the storms in December.

In particular about people have been flooded out of their homes and trying to get help promised help.

How are towns and cities in the North Country, you know, working to become more resilient when it comes to flooding like this?

You know, towns I talked to this, particularly the town of Conway, has a sort of Band-Aid approach for this.

There's a part of town that gets cut off on both sides by flooding.

So it becomes sort of like an island.

And for the past, many storms, they've just stationed an ambulance and a fire truck in that part of town before it starts raining, so that people in that place that become sort of an island in this neighborhood have access to medical care if if they're, you know, can't, get out of their neighborhood for a couple days.

And that town, you know, they suspended solution, but now they're sort of trying to get federal help to, raise the roads that flood out and create culverts and drainage.

It poses the money question because it's, you know, even if they get 90% of the project funded, it's still, you know, a tax hike for, for folks in town and requires voter voter input.

And, and so, yeah, I think, I think places are trying to become more resilient and also struggling with the, with the money side of things.

Yeah.

Nichola, do you see that?

I see you nodding your head too.

Did you, do you see that when you're in reporting for NPR that towns and cities are, you know, trying certain things, but of course it comes down to money.

There's money becoming available.

It might not be enough, but you also have to have leaders in your communities who are willing to to, to look at what the science is saying about what could happen in their community, what's already happening because the past is no longer precedent.

Right.

And so and so, you know, so and then I think it's incumbent upon your representatives, your governors, your ages to push either on the local level or on the federal level to get the money to, you know, to build this resilience.

So that's, you know, that's at the end of the day, I mean, this country has the money to do it.

Right.

The question is whether we we're going to do it.

We do have an audience question here.

And this goes right to the heart of what we have this panel for today.

How do you express urgency and alarm without falling into disrepair and despair?

Excuse me?

I think it's a responsibility of journalists to make sure that we are telling stories that center the perspectives of people and communities who are bearing the the worst impacts of, of of climate change and amplify their voices, amplify the solutions that they're bringing forward.

And and, you know, I think that's one answer to that question is that sort of work.

But on the flip side, you know, I do think that there there is a degree to which, you know, we live in a time where there is unprecedented federal funding for this kind of work that's out there.

So it's just a matter of whether states and communities are going to be able to go get it and if they're going to do that.

So, yeah.

How about getting.

Yep.

Yeah.

I think, if we stick to the science and to the facts and as Abigail Sam said, like interview the people who are living it, we, we can bring, very, accurate picture that then people can, decide and and and work with that that, that would bring like if we do good journalism, it will be a way to, to help people, to understand the reality and not go for something sensationalist.

And also wanted to go back to one thing that Neela said this, the people in Redding, in the mystic River, which, by the way, is the most urbanized area in New England, which is most bathed, in less absorption of water and the way they hope, to reduce flood damage.

They don't even hope to reduce, flooding.

So that was something that, struck me that is like with, with win, not even thinking about reducing flooding or and the flooding, it's just like the damage that we, we hope to to reduce.

Neela, how does that play into the selection of stories that you do for NPR?

This is the science is the absolute foundation of everything.

We are not going to get over our skis on this, right?

It has to be.

And if you're coming up with a solution, you know, like, is it is it not just like scientifically plausible?

Is it scalable?

Is it affordable?

You know, all of this stuff.

And I think, and I think an approach it this way.

A lot of times we do get asked as climate reporters, including like by my friends or whatever, like, how do you do it?

Don't you get like depressed and and I do because because I do feel like everybody on this stage that we are we are we hope that we are helping the public.

Right.

We hope that we're giving you information to have that sense of agency and clarity.

And, you know, and I think a lot of times people like regular people who are not journalists feel despair because they feel like like, I'm so small.

I can't do anything.

And you're not small.

You have, you know.

Yes.

Like big corporations.

Big governments got us to this point.

Right.

But but we are, you know, like Mara was saying, like communities have come together before to do things.

And one of the solutions that we actually came, you know, like experts told us last year when Julia Simon said, what is a climate solution?

You know, talked about scalability, affordability.

She said, wonder, you're one of the solutions that people have is your vote, right?

People are saying this now.

It is not a Partizan issue.

You know, there are places in this country that's one party or another.

And but the example she used was Brazil, right.

You had, you know, Bolsonaro and there was a terrible deforestation there.

They elected Lula.

And deforestation has plummeted because and that is how people's votes matter.

So so these are the things, you know, that we can point out.

And then it's up to people to make those decisions.

And I think that's what prevents despair.

And I think like and I think the reporters on our team understand that.

And they support each other and they have colleagues, you know, at member stations with whom they're in constant communication and, you know, find a way to support each other that way to well, I appreciate that.

There's a panel of of environmental journalists on the stage.

You have hope because you have to have hope, I think, in order to offer hope.

So, as journalists, that's it's heartening to hear.

Well, I want to thank you all for coming here on stage and thank you in the audience as well.

Thank you.

Our virtual audience today.

I want to thank you and H for hosting Gracious hosts.

Indeed.

And thank you to all the staff at and as always, and NH PBS teams that made this all possible.

The tech teams, behind the scenes teams, the producers, the editors.

It takes an awful lot to pull off an event like this.

And, I think they deserve a round of applause.

So thank you.